Will and Damien's Misadventure in Italy
by HereForThemFanfics
Summary: Or, How Much You Can Actually Communicate in Italian Using Only Latin and Music Theory Terms. Will and Damien are stuck in Italy without their Italian interpreters. Much awkwardness ensues.


As it turns out, basically nothing.

* * *

Will was _not _having a good time.

"Go to Italy," they said.

"Bring back _The Method of Mechanical __Theorems_," they said.

"It'll be fun," they added.

Lies.

It wasn't just the fact that Archimedes's Book of Very Important Mathematical Theorems had been lost since antiquity. It wasn't just the fact that the last copy of the book was most likely destroyed because some idiot monk in the 13th century ran out of parchment (1).

It was the fact that they had agreed to rendezvous at the Ponte Vecchio (2), and Will had absolutely no _flipping idea where that was._

"This is all your fault," Damien White growled next to him.

Which made him nervous. Damien was a child of Nemesis, meaning that crossing him would probably have some very painful repercussions in his future. Will didn't need to be a child of Apollo to know that. Pointing it out that this was, in fact, at least partly Damien's fault probably wasn't a good idea, either.

"_So we check out the public places first" said Nico. "Me and Will check out the libraries, Chiara and Damien check out the museums. We rendezvous at the Ponte Vecchio."_

"_No," said Chiara and Damien together._

_Nico blinked, "Excuse me?"_

"_We're _not _going with each other," Chiara snapped._

"_What is it now?" Nico asked exasperatedly._

"_The idiot spilled olive oil all over me (3)," she snarled._

"_You can get a new shirt," Damien retorted, "Accidents happen in the real world, Lucky."_

"_It's bad luck. Bad luck that I refuse to suffer because some-"_

"_Alright, alright!" Will cut in, eager to avoid another fight and waste their precious searching time. "Chiara can go with Nico, Damien can go with me. We rendezvous at the Ponte Vecchio."_

In retrospect, they should have split it up so each group has someone who could speak Italian.

They stopped a grumpy looking local with a strange curl coming off the center of his head. "Excuse me, I don't suppose you'd know the way to the Ponte Vec-"

The man erupted in a flurry of Italian that Will didn't think were directions. They had to be rescued by a much nicer Italian man, slightly younger and had the strange curl sticking out of the left side of his head instead-probably his brother-which was just as well, because the first man was starting to resemble a tomato with how red his face was getting.

"_Mi dispiace_!" the nicer one kept repeating while making calming gestures at his brother, which seemed to have the opposite effect. "_Fratello, sii gentile_!"

"Um," Will cleared his throat. The younger one immediately stopped what he was doing, "_Si_?"

"Ponte Vecchio," Damien spoke up. "Do you know where that is?"

He blinked, then stared for a long time.

Damien growled, "Listen up, you-"

Will interrupted before Damien could start assaulting the man, desperately trying to recall any Italian he might have known, which mostly boiled down to a limited knowledge of Latin and a lot of music theory. "Ponte Vecchio. We," he gestured to the two of them, "ambulamo... ambulos...ah gods dammit, conjugations! Andante! Con amici...amicos...Affabile amabile people...segue…" he trailed off.

With each word, the man looked more bemused. With each word, Will felt his confidence drain through his shoes.

Next to him, Damien had either taken pity on him or simply ran out of patience. "Ponte Vecchio," he said forcefully. "Donde esta?(4)"

"_Ah, si_!" the man suddenly perked up, "_Seguimi_!" He took Damien by the hand, ignored his irritated growl, and practically _skipped_ through the streets.

His brother let out an angry string of Italian and beckoned roughly at Will to follow.

As it turned out, they had, in their aimless walking, ended up on the other side of the city. After a few stray cats that the man simply _had_ to stop and pet, irritated grumbling from the man's brother, and a few shortcuts that seemed to appear from _nowhere_, Will spotted Nico and Chiara waiting around, looking decidedly grouchy and glancing at the clock every so often.

So that de-escalated quickly.

Will turned to thank the two men, but they were already gone.

"Where in realm of Dad were you guys?" Nico demanded upon seeing them.

"Sorry, Nico," Will gave a sheepish smile, "We got lost."

"You couldn't have asked directions?"

"We tried, but the people we asked couldn't speak English."

"Huh," Nico frowned.

"Found anything?" Will asked, eager to change the subject.

"Not on Archimedes, but we did find an interesting book by a woman called Agnes Nutter…"*

Inside one of the shops on the Ponte Vecchio...

"_So, Feliciano_," the older, darker haired Italian said to the younger, auburn haired one in Italian. "_When are we going to tell them that we speak English_?"(4.5)

* * *

(1) _The Method of Mechanical Theorems_ was written by Archimedes. I took liberties with that book, because apparently there's only one surviving copy of that work written in any language, and that's super cool, okay?

(1.5)The monk with the parchment is a reference to how exactly the manuscript resurfaced. Apparently, a monk in the 13th century ran out of parchment, and since parchment was expensive, he took apart Archimedes' manuscript, wiped off the original words, folded it in half, and stitched it into the new book. That was how it resurfaced in 1906 in Istanbul.

(2) One of the most distinguishing landmarks in Florence, which makes Will and Damien's inability to find it utterly hilarious.

(3) Spilling olive oil is apparently bad luck in Italy. I don't know if that's actually true, but the internet says so, so...any Italians out there who can confirm?

(4) Apparently, Spanish and Italian are close enough to each other that people can understand each other if they speak slowly enough. Again, I don't know if it's true; I don't speak either, so if anyone can confirm...

(4.5) That being said, apparently, about 29% of Italians can speak English (compare Americans, of which only 16% speak Spanish, the second most common language in the country). Feliciano and his brother (I think we'll call him Lovino) were just messing with the demigods.

**So that's it for this fic. For those of you who read this fic and are wondering, Yes, it was the Italy brothers from Hetalia that Will and Damien had run into. Of everyone in the city they had stopped to ask for directions, they had the good (or bad) luck to run into them. I was just going to drop them in as cameos, but I dunno, maybe I'll do a full blown crossover if enough people ask.**

***I've been into Good Omens lately, and since the latest series by Uncle Rick was about prophecies, I couldn't resist. Maybe I'll write a full on crossover after I finish it.**


End file.
